The Gender Spectrum Conference is the oldest and largest conference in the country exclusively for families with transgender, non-binary and gender-expansive children and youth.

Professionals' Symposium

The 2020 Gender Spectrum Professionals’ Symposium will take place online on Thursday and Friday, July 16-17. Details for the online program, registration, logistics and more will be coming soon – check back to this page for updates.

While we are saddened that we will not be able to meet together as a community in person, we are excited by the potential benefits that an online experience will bring to this year’s Professionals’ Symposium. The Professionals’ Symposium is designed for individuals who serve youth and/or families and are looking for knowledge and skills to be more gender inclusive in their practice. Participants engage in programming and acquire resources designed to build their capacity to support families and young people who are transgender, nonbinary and/or gender expansive.

Workshops are organized around a variety of disciplines – education, medicine, the law, mental health/counseling, social services, and child welfare. In addition, a number of workshops focus on a range of interdisciplinary topics including how the intersection of gender and race, religion, class, and other aspects of identity impact a young person’s gender experience. We will offer workshops ranging from introductory to advanced topics for the most experienced professionals. Workshops will be specifically labelled as “entry level” or “advanced,” in order to better support participants wherever they are along their own learning curve.

Some of our popular workshop sessions from past years have included Exploring the Relationship Between Gender Identity, Body Image, and Eating Disorders; Gender and Neurodiversity; Creating Gender Inclusive Schools; Supporting the Sphere: Exploring Medical and Mental Health Options for Non-binary Individuals; and others.

We hope you will join us on July 16-17 as together we build our capacity to support the young people we work with to help them effectively navigate their world.

Please be sure to check back here for details for the online program, registration, logistics, as we will begin to post them shortly.

Update on the 2020 Conference

It is with sadness that we have decided that, in the face of the continued crisis that is affecting so many of us, Gender Spectrum must cancel our 2020 Family Conference. We know how much the Conference means for the families who attend seeking support, information, and community. We did not make this decision lightly and held out to the last possible planning minute in the hope that we would be able to serve families at a time when so many services are unavailable.

The 2020 Professionals' Symposium will go forward on as an online event July 16 and 17.

Please rest assured that, once the crisis has passed and we can again be together in person, we will be hosting a Conference in 2021. In the meantime, you can find our current online events and offerings on our Covid-19 Resources page.